Week 2 of the OPL has certainly pulled the curtain back a little more on the league. Teams have been challenged a bit more and others have drastically over-performed everyone's previous thoughts.

Team Pandamonium vs Avant Garde

Last week Pandamonium showed that Tainted Minds were no longer a problem for them. Avant Garde stepped up to the plate to show Pandamonium what they could do.
The game started with First Blood on LiquidRenegade getting caught by himself by Ochita and Sporks giving early jungle control to Sporks. He was able to invade Liquid's second speed buff with the assistance of Ochita opening more gank opportunities. Liquid was on Thor so he still had the long range ultimate to counter gank or initiate. An attempt at killing Ochita went awry as a nicely timed rotation from Rowe resulted in Maus getting pinned against a wall and killed.

Pandamonium once again invaded Liquids speed buff 6:30, as Avant tried to burst it and get out Sporks landed a fantastic Fear No Evil to separate Avant and make it easy pickings for Ochita and Rowe. The first ray of hope for Avant Garde was a well-executed dive from ElChuckles under mid tower to kill Ochita who was poked out from Maus' Rain Fire.

Many were surprised when Rowe dived a tier 1 tower to try to take out ElChuckles as Chuckles didn't panic, used his ultimate and shield, waited for Rowe to take tower damage and killed him putting him ahead in gold. Rowe was caught out by himself around Avant's blue buff then killed shortly after by Liquid. Sporks too was taken down by Maus who paid for the kill with his life.

Picks and fights continued for the next 10 minutes with Avant Garde being able to take 2 towers and a couple kills but Pandamonium were always on the better end of the trades. Fire giant was fought over at 31 minutes in the game and won by Pandamonium. A few phoenixes and minutes later, they closed the game ending 22-5 at 33 minutes. Pandamonium with Raijin in their draft was arguably the turning point of this game.

Right away Avant Garde banned Raijin. Pandamonium were prepared though as Rowe picked Odin with Ochita on Zeus for the cage of death strategy.

To start game 2 Avant caught out Rowe at level 1 but Sporks and Ochita were able to turn the fight and get Ochita a triple kill at 1:20 on the clock. Though the game started with a bang the early game did not have much action. Maus and Tomahawk rotated to Solo at 5:10 to try and keep Rowe shutdown for as long as possible. The first team fight around 8 minutes was in favour of Pandamonium picking up 2 kills.

A 3-1 fight for Pandamonium at 12:30 in mid lane swung the chances closer to Pandamonium ending 2-0. Robdigidy wasn't going down without a fight stealing Gold Fury with his Ricochet at 18 minutes pulling Avant Garde back and wining the fight 4-3. A fight broke out at the tier 2 Solo lane tower by Rowe jumping in with his cage but Tomahawk turned the fight with a nice cataclysm and Geb shield saving Robdigidy and ElChuckles in a single fight. It was to no avail though as the tower was still lost. The next two fights were both won by Pandamonium 4-0 at 24mins and again 4-0 at 26 mins.
Pandamonium then ended the game a few seconds later. A faster game for Pandamonium but Avant Garde have lost and learnt to play against them, will be exciting to see how they adjust when they face them again in week 6.

Incite vs PLT Tainted Minds

Both of these teams were unexpectedly placed at the bottom of the table after week 1 and now set to change the tides of their standings.

Right off the bat this game was considered over when Incite picked Susano, which was also the first time pick in OPL. First blood taken by Maxen onto Elkeiro showing why Susano is banned so often by pulling him out of his dash and exploding his health bar. When Tainted Minds dove in the solo lane to successfully kill TheBeast and take the tower, meanwhile, Incite snuck the Gold Fury.

It was a very slow early game with only 2 kills in the first 16 mins. It was Tainted Minds turning in making their attempt at Gold Fury but Laney stole it with a perfectly timed basic attack keeping Incite in the lead.

The first 30 minutes of the game were somewhat even until Incite chased Tainted Minds into their jungle and dove a tier 2 tower for 3 kills plus the tower. Fire Giant started up at 33:50 mins by Incite and the siege began. Tainted Minds put up their defence but a Fire Giant buffed up Incite were too much to handle and they broke through 2 phoenixes by 37 minutes. Incite started up the Fire giant once more only to say let's fight and won a fight 4-1 only losing Maxen then turned to the Titan ending the game at 40:40, 13-3 in kills.

Game 2 was certainly an interesting one. Bellona ADC for Gruff but also Raijin in the mid lane. A mix of a top pick and a strange one made this game one to watch.

Straight away Tainted Minds took their early game advantage to Incite stealing away Yada's red buff. Minutes later Tainted Minds tried again to steal the red buff, Yada wasn't having any of it and tried to secure it with his ultimate but was unsuccessful. Incite gathered and fought off Tainted Minds with good team fighting, and positioning from Laney and Yada. Laney ended up with 3 kills and a 600 gold lead over Gruff.

Even trades occurred throughout the next 10 minutes but it was stopped when Incite dove the middle lane tower exploding JustSpeedy and Tomolomu on Raijin and Ares before they could use their ultimates. With the help of Yada's Ra heals Incite were able to push and destroy the tier 1 and tier 2 towers in mid at 12 minutes.

A fight in the duo lane was initiated by Tainted Minds with a great 3 man stun by UltimateAbyss followed by Tomolomu pulling in 3 of Incite only to be killed immediately by those he pulled, Laney was picked off shortly after evening the fight.

A big fight broke out in the solo lane as Incite dove the tower to kill Elkeiro then Tainted Minds killed off Maxen and started chasing Incite under their own tower. A good stall by Incite kept Tainted Minds under fire from the tower and Incite won the fight. At 20 mins all towers were down for Tainted Minds and Incite had all of theirs still up. One free Fire Giant and a couple fights later, Incite took the first Phoenix taken at 24 minutes and ended the game 24:55.

Dead Weight vs LlamasInPyajamas

A name from Split 1 OPL's SIN Gaming, Horizon, was the stand-in ADC for Dead Weight in this match. Jing Wei was picked up for Swifty in the mid lane for LlamasInPyajamas and it worked quite well.

A slow early game compared to the other games this week started with First Blood at 5 minutes on Shred by Torreyskiez executing Shred with an Ao Kuang ultimate. A second attempt at taking Shred's life was turned around from a beautiful combo from Shred's Bludgeon and Agony's Fire Shards exploding Torreyskiez. Seemed like Torrey had pitched a tent in Shred's lane as the third try in killing Shred was successful once again with the execute ultimate. Llamas were shutting Shred down before he could come online and deal serious damage.

The first Gold Fury of the game was taken by Dead Weight at 11:00 with a close steal from Llamas. Llamas were able to return the gold in their favour at 16 minutes with a Gold Fury fight of their own after they made a pick onto OnlyGoodAtSolo.

Llamas pressured the solo lane tier 1 tower after a short siege and pick onto Agony. They then turned toward the Gold Fury but Weave stole it with a Calvary Charge on Guan Yu. The fight was pressured by Dead Weight as they jumped in but Llamas turned it back carried by Swifty and Torrey ending up killing 3 members of Dead Weight and only losing Dagnyt.

Dead Weight grouped up in the mid lane and took out the tier 1 tower, then rotated for the duo lane tier 1 where it was destroyed without any contest from Llamas. After the tower fell Llamas tried to fight but lost Swifty, Torrey and Dagnyt. A second try at the tier 2 tower went badly for Dead Weight as they were wiped out by Llamas in a deicide for 3 trade.
At 31 minutes a fight began at the tier 2 solo lane tower by Dead Weight moving to the phoenix being destroyed however an overextension from Dead Weight found 4 players being killed off and Llamas taking the Fire Giant. Llamas didn't do anything with the Fire Giant, though they tried to push solo lane it wasn't working.

For the next 20 minutes both teams fought back a forth between phoenixes, Fire Giants, and kills. The end of the game came from a mind game juke from Dead Weight tricking Llamas into chasing them into the jungle leaving the Titan wide open and Dead Weight rushing it down.

Game 2 kept the trend of tilting to one side after a close first game in the matches of week 2.

First Blood was drawn by Swifty killing OnlyGoodAtSolo in the first 2 minutes of the game destroying his health with assistance by Torreyskiez. At 7 minutes Shred was able to keep Shruix and Torrey in his Cabrakan Tremors to pick them both off before Swifty shut him down and saved Dagnyt from the same fate.

The first Gold Fury was taken by Dead Weight but Swifty had something to say in the form of a fantastic 4 man Through Space and Time forcing Dead Weight to retreat and 3 of them being picked off. Shred teleported to help and was able to pick off 2 members of an overextended team of Llamas.

Llamas thought they had an advantage over Dead Weight after killing OnlyGoodAtSolo so they started the Gold Fury only to have it stolen by Horizon's Hou Yi Sunbreaker throwing them in front of Llamas in gold.

Ranabarana soloed Horizon in the duo lane as Anhur and within 2 minutes Horizon came back and soloed Rana. The duo lane was aggressive towards the late game to say the least.

Llamas pressured the solo lane tier 1 tower but lost the fight when Dead Weight pushed back. Dead Weight replied with a tier 2 tower and Fire Giant. The snowball from Dead Weight was too much for Llamas as Shred picked up a triple kill as they pushed the middle lane tier 2 tower followed by the phoenix and then the Titan.